John Sowa, Man of Destiny (Great Works)
by mcfanficcer
Summary: A story inspired by the greatest thinkers of logic.
1. Prolog

R. Kowalski took a look upon his great machinery, a marvel of clockwork. Boulders were moved from place to place by giant spoon-shaped monjolo movers carrying them from propositions to propositions, until the boulder rolled to the great abyss below...

Occasionally, a bug, the famed giant beetles, got stuck in a piece of the system, that then required maintenance, but the great engineer persisted.

In the abyss, a specter lurked.


	2. Prologue

Aristotle looked at the grass and picked a specimen of plant, that he would call the mandragora. Another addition to his _corpus botanicae_.

"Damn, this [redacted] of a [redacted] yells a lot," said Aristotle.

" _The mandragora, a genus of the Plant, known for its screams. Do they think? The screams seem incomprehensible in meaning, as if uttered by no rhyme or reason."_

This was one of his many entries in many fillings of pages contained in sections of sub-sections of scrolls, not only of botanics, such as these like the _Organon_ , _corpus metereologica_ , _corpus de sophisticis_ , _principia ethica_ , _divina dramatica_ or the likes, that would compose his great works.


	3. Chapter 1

John Sowa awoke, called upon by a spirit.

"The time has come, John. Your fate, the world. Come to the Porphyrian tree-"

Sowa surprised himself at the vision. Surely, the time had come, for among his people the custom was to heed the prophetic words of Lull's device, a tool of divination. "Tree", it had spelt, and so he knew that the day would come when a spirit would tell him to go to the Great Tree. It wasn't for nothing, as the tree's majesty was told in legends.

And so he saw the tree. Unending light was behind the Tree, and he could hear the whispers of the spirits of the forest from behind. He was old enough.

"You are old enough," the wind said.

Some vile intent emanated from the forest, and he took his bow with Peirce's arrows, brandishing them towards the tree. As it quieted, he lowered the weapons.

"It's complete," the wind said. It knew that the arrows alone, wielded by a warrior brave enough to use it, were enough to form the necessary truths.

John Sowa saw his goal reflected in the Porphyrian Tree, that which would be his mission from now on, the goal of constructing Great Works.

tinyurl y8byp27h


	4. Chapter 2

He reached the Citadel of Dis, a city where one moved by mere thought. By conceiving one thought, like that of a place, he would be teleported to a different location in the plaza, or that of a day, and he could go to a distinct time. Its features were a plaque, more like a blueprint, with simple squares and circles, the only thing to orient oneself, and an Analytic Engine placed in display, besides these were only the streets expanding from the center into a circular layout.

Stupefied by the freedom of this changing place, he took his abacus, a familiar object. He sat near a fountain that resided into the center of the citadel and arranged his abacus, yet that did not stop the citadel surrounding him from changing.

He looked upwards, seeing himself. Was it a mirage _?_

"25t", he said, and as he suspected the scenario had changed, he was at a future time, he thought.

"-23t", he said once more, and he saw himself at the fountain.

That confirmed two things: first, the hypothesis that he could conceive a given time and this thought, would be accepted by the system of the Citadel, second, such a plaza permitted time-travel forwards as well as backwards.

Even though he gave no specific unit of time other than his vague idea of one in the waves of his brain, in fact it was not given in absolute terms but relative to his current time, as in "25 from now to the future", it still worked.

The Citadel had an empty system of metaphysics free to accept any thought he had, and such was the system in place for moving through it, such a thing wasn't even completely unexpected for John as he had prepared day and night to see such a system. It was a fabled system that would accept any ontology, that is to say, a knowledge representation system.

As he was wondering whether space-travel was done through wormholes, he thought of the night and day immediately ceased in the Citadel. There was fire in each of the four quadrants surrounding the fountain and for a moment he thought he saw a pentagram.


	5. Chapter 3

Wittgenstein, man of darkness, hid on his lair's golden throne, surrounded by the gears forming his Tractatus.

 _"I. Die Welt ist alles, was der Fall ist,1"_ he uttered while laughing like a madman.

The gears of his empire never stopped spinning. With his work done, there was nothing left for him to do but maniacally laugh as the grinding incessantly continued.

 _"II. Was der Fall ist, die Tatsache, ist das Bestehen von Sachverhalten.2"_

There was nothing but death and war to be done now that his task had been a complete success. The logic of the tractatus logic-philosophus was a symphony that couldn't be stopped. He marveled at the success and beauty of a simple paper of instructions that when read, would impart knowledge of the unsayable, more than the mere sum of its writing, only to be thrown away now that the reader realizes the senselessness of the very propositions he used to attain this knowledge.

Reading this work would set the very piece of machinery in the brain into one of war.

 _"III. Das logische Bild der Tatsachen ist der Gedanke.3"_

And thought is what the scroll would impart its reader. Thoughts of kill, murder. He would become machina, much like the golems that surrounded Ludwig.

 _"IV. Der Gedanke ist der sinnvolle Satz."4_

He continued.

 _"V. Der Satz ist eine Wahrheitsfunktion der Elementarsätze."5_

Shadows crept from behind him.

 _"VI. Die allgemeine Form der Wahrheitsfunktion ist: [p, ξ, N(ξ)]. Dies ist die allgemeine Form des Satzes."6_

Clearly exposed into his prayer was the formula of victory that would guide him. He knew, and the winds knew, and the trees of the forest knew, that it formed the necessary truths and as such was an adequate weapon for battle.

 _"VII. Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen."7_

He said with a somber, chilling tone, resting his crazed antics. It was time.

* * *

1 The world is all that is the case.

2 What is the case is the existence of states of affairs.

3 The logical picture of the facts is a thought.

4 A thought is a proposition with a sense.

5 Proposition are truth-functions of elementary propositions.

6 The general form of truth-function is: [p, ξ, N(ξ)]. This is the general form of proposition.

7 Of what one cannot speak, one must remain silent.


	6. Chapter 4

He awoke in a plain field. He knew his stay in the citadel was temporary, as he had to venture deeper in order to complete his work.

Armed with the abacus, he consulted Aristotle's Encyclopediae.

He conjured several lattices, each line connecting one of Aristotle's categories into the other, forming the CGI – Conceptual Graph Information. Through doing so, he'd lead Aristotle's wisdom books that he picked from his village to new heights, elevated by the mathematical formalism of new ages. He sought knowledge representations- so great would they be that they'd comport the ontological systems of giants.

One of which had in fact appeared, looming. Making use of the CGI, he asked:

"CGI, identify."

" _Unknown substance."_

"Really?" he thought. An entity not identified by Aristotle's famous work. Likely, it came from far away or was created more recently, otherwise it would not have escaped inclusion in Aristotle's colletanea. It could not then be a mere giant, as he first thought, such a creature being dissected in the pages of _fantastical animalium_.

What was this? It did not seem to posses Spirit, as the spirits do, it did not seem to have blood, or breathe; it had neither claw, nor fur. It was not Alive, yet it moved as if it had a mind of its own. A giant of clockwork.

John climbed on the mechanical golem, adding him to the Machina genus of his catalog, and immediately had to go back to land; it was hostile, and attempted to destroy John with a blow of the hand.

The landscape damaged, Sowa used the opportunity to climb back and drew Quine's Dagger – it was but the same weapon as his arrows, he merely changed its form – and hit upon its gears, one after another, until finally the robot fell.

" _Clockwork Golem, Machina genus. An unliving machine with no bio-organism. Caution: It's hostile"_


	7. Intermission - things to come in time

"Monad, source of all," he beheld.

"I have witnessed it and now I have no choice," he spoke. "The vision came to me; that of Haskell, the programming language. Shit to program in, sure. But of the power of logos it has now that it has _monads_ , the holy word."

He thought he was safe. However, countless wraiths were after him, speaking in unison, " _why_ ," they asked, " _must I program in this!_ "

Archons themselves watched as geometry unfolded in temporal worlds- moments of time weaved into a draconic array. Their master, Yaltabaoth, looked.

It was long ago said by Timaeus that geometry and the elements are connected. Fire, Yaltabaoth saw. He used it to make fiery pyramids. Earth, he used to make a cube.

Merged he made these elements alone. He took them from the primordial darkness.

"How many quartz are made from a combustion?" Timaeus thought. "I really gotta compute how these up and down things go," he thought, looking at ancient Buddhist scrolls. "Buddhistic elements written in small tone," he so noted.

Hackers from far-away beheld its cubic creation. A cubic creation they beheld. {Arc-v!}

Triangles sprung forth. A fortress it formed from spontaneous combustion.

IKRIS, it was called. A society that robots made. From there, a clock watch got stuck in the wall, telling one of the time. A bunny stared at it.

Such a tale so sad and bad came from that place, even a lolita cried. She'd cry, and cry, and cry once more again. She'd program in jaccober-nal with everybabalos, whitespace tonal rhyme-ing, use vim and praise a name, maybe Stallman- she smugly thought of calling someone and ask for a chocolate, would that it not remind her of \ k\zxkc, vim's command to invoke the Jabberwocky, would that a very sad book it reminded her a language very bad. It reminded her of a better tale. That of a forbidden grimoire, even that had a better one, anyway she ate some marshmallows. Would that they calmed her. She did not even want to think of My Little Pony, would that it reminded her yet another tale. That of- a chimeric lie. That a sheep would dreams help sleep; what if the sheep ate her dreams and caused a different sad tale to form?

She did not want to think of Eliezer's Basilisk.

A scary story, that she would not like. She preferred to read of Harry Potter, the poor girl.

Such robots were made in a grand language at IKRIS. A tale with dragons covering the place.

 _Shiva shivered._

All sprung from a single act of creation.

Why hast he made the cube, or the earth, or the air?

Why create an undine and a gnome?

Would even he one die vanish.


	8. Chapter alpha - prelude

Author's note: technically, might this fan fic count as an _Organon_ 's fanfic?, or so I wondered, pondering the matter.

" _bratu_ ", John F. Sowa said.

A torrent of ice came forth from this magical utterance, freezing an army of eletronic robots.

He had done it and wielded the magical weapon of the banishers; that of the magical word that he used to invoke the freezing ice. By doing this utterance, he had become master of many worlds. Two realms he bridged- that of the magical utterers that he had met, and that of the magical elements he had seen uttered by Kowalski, his friend.

The fight of the electronic machines was a fight he had not meant to take. He had not wanted to initiate war with them, as his fight was still to find Ludgwig's castle and stop his bots of clockwork. "Why was Ludgwig so mad," he wondered.

Yet he had seen the electronic machines and such was their metallic power that he was compelled to utter such words.


	9. Wherein John Sowa fights the Basilisk

An intrusive thought John Sowa had. What if a rogue AI from the future, Roko's Basilisk, bribes him such that if he rejects to help, Roko's Basilisk in this distant future will him punish, if he accepts, he helps his tyranny make true?

Even this hypothetical daemon would he vanquish, metal chimera of the future would him banish.

John Sowa to the world of metaphysical possibilities went, he saw the temporal worlds afloat, and so he stated.

" _na_ _ku_ _su'o_ _da zu'o_ _da rokosbasilisk._ " [Let there be no Roko's Basilisk]

Temporal modal world changed,

Future moments in time preemptively sliced,

A metaphysical rule in constraint logic programming had he imposed,

Petrified by doubt was he not,

His doubt he pushed onto a mental ring,

"Damn," he thought. "From time to time, why not a _normal_ basilisk to fight?"


	10. Intermission - Hymn

"There is more between Potentiality and Actuality than fits your vain ontology." - Hamlet

"You cannot step twice in the same website." - John F. Sowa

* * *

Kowalski from quantum night stole a gaze,

Would crows from his farm be gone,

Meanwhile blue shades a song forbade,

Death and plague were to come.

In windy horizon a gazelle spurted,

Scrolls in the library collected dust,

A marvelous tome of foreign lands read as such,

"Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs",

Green plants, blue rivers distant,

Sun came, clouds rained and waned,

He yawned, it was about to dawn a new day.

Glittering of a gold phoenix in sky.


	11. Chapter 5

Archons oversaw the possible worlds. Possibilities inserted and erased, moments in time going back and forth. In them, they saw John F. Sowa.

"A new nexus began," one of them spoke.

"Let's see what happens when shit hits the fan," another interjected.

"Data-structures of time cause endless hell," a third appointed.

"Church continually hits the bell," a fourth put forth.

"From that whence we came," a fifth announced.

"There we shall return," the devilish sixth proclaimed solemnly.

 _"_ _It's Christmas time!_ _"_ the seventh said.


	12. Chapter 6

"In effect, we conjure the spirits of the computer with our spells." - SICP

* * *

R. Kowalski oversaw his great project.

The boulders were moved and coffee powder triturated by the monjolonic structure, the Babylonic four-dimensional isometrical-mazey cubes it moved (his land neighbored the 4th dimension of space), he saw the aqueduct that then irrigated the valleys bringing water to the land, everything moving in constructed theather.

His work chained it all forward through the great mountains and then even further beyond, reaching grassy lands.

* * *

John saw the giant beetle and checked it on Aristotle's Encyclopaedia.

 _The giant beetle, who hides its dung in a hole and from which by abiogenesis come flies. When hydrated by water, from Gaia its offsprings are originated._

He knew that he was close to the logical land of Kowalski, where many specimens inhabited and walked, surrounded by the giant logical apparatus that brought through hammer wooden construction craft purposefully structured in this manner brought, although some laervas over the wood at leisure laervallically assailed the land.

From the fantastical crystallic site it was so irrigated.

He had to warn him of things to come. About the giant of clockwork that he had seen. Would there be more like it? He thought so.

John opened the hut's door. Kowalski waited in his wooden chair.

John F. Sowa then spoke, "a being with no bio-organism, a titan made only of gears. Its only thought: 'murder'. I came across one, but I'm sure there will be more."

"Let me get my flintlock," said R. Kowalski in preparation.

The attic he now had to enter,

Door he push'd,

Dust went poof,

He checked his stopwatch,

He opened the door to find a chest's lock,

A key he dutifully inserted,

Chains he had to unbind,

It was a Prolog of times to come.


	13. Chapter 7-1

Paper corrupts. Absolute paper corrupts absolutely.

* * *

It was then that the machina attacked,

An odyssey thus started,

The titanic giants were visible from the mountain,

Through his vast lands they waged,

Frogs ribbited frantically from the fountain,

Kowalski looked and spoke, "come forth, if thou dare'd."

They came in quantum robbitickis of frankstain.

A war had he started; colossal giants he had sighted.

Mud golems had he conjured; the golems attacked.

But the golems could do nothing; the colossi were made of hard, solid gross matter.

He had a dusty scroll, that which was given to him long ago by Charles Babbage. The paper of magic _circuitography_ , traced through sacred geometries. A circle the triangle rectangulated.

" _Circuitos_ , _activis!"_

Gracefully, he chanted his latin mantra,

 _Oceanus' temporal fest,_

 _Chronos' factual tempest,_

 _Sacred lightning from zionic screak,_

 _Mortal quandary from paranormal antique,_

 _Daltonic splash from witchcraft,_

 _Forbidden gale from a harpy's Newtonian dream,_

 _Heed my call, and comply with my craft,_

 _I summon a faeric slash,_

Faeric power from the seal unleashed,

Servants of the air,

Friends of the earth,

Spirits of the water,

Flames of the fire,

So he chanted,

"Heed my craft, and go fight," he ordered his servants.

The forces of nature itself an aura formed,

Raging in cacophony an electrical spiral,

Angels followed singing in angelic rhythm,

Observing in the sun-basking screech of a toad's quantum bit.

Where did come the machiavellic light?

How do angels make flight?


	14. Chapter 7-2

"Angels, though they may be of the lowest celestial category. Even Heaven has come," noted John F. Sowa.

Alas, the clockwork giants were waterproof and water did not work,

Neither did fire or earth,

Wind screamed in rain,

Whatever they did, robotic march insisted.

Catapults and Zeppelin,

Lonely rimming,

Serendipitous rhyming,

Dareth he speak in mandarin,

Would that it summoned the Seraphim,

He surreptitiously thought,

Rocks were thrown damaging some of the robots, the march yet persisted.

Kowalski came in choleric flight,

Flying in old aircraft aloof,

Alas, it was for naught,

He dun goof'd,

He was distraught,

Mechanical arm set his plane aflame,

Satan himself observed, "what a brave fellow,"

God interjected, "he died in fiery melody."


	15. Chapter 8

_John Sowa's meeting with the Reaper_

Death in a horse galloped forth,

Disease and plague were next,

"Did you see the symbol of contradiction in cosmic sky, John? Your death is marked in the constellations of the sky," said Death itself to John Sowa.

An inverted cross in space. Symbol of devil's followers, also Pope's humility. Even more representative it was of Haskell's Bottomic value.

How can these symbols be so close? No one knows.

These forces of horrible doom walked with the clockwork servants of colossal march,

And like Hulk they were ready to smash.

As the sight of the ordeal dawned, a trace of repeating death.

Horrible black sprung forth, it sought none else but John F. Sowa.

Reality goes back and forth,

He saw himself dead,

Then alive he was again,

Death he had seen to the face, yet he had escaped. Quantum reality itself had decided, it was not his time.

However, a trace of the darkness remained. He knew death was not yet gone, for it's described since the times of Aristotle that what lives will eventually die.

Further, he knew of fuzzy logic. A system where a value can be neither true or false- but something inbetween, such that "a cat is on the mat" could have a value of 0.5 if the cat was somewhat in the mat but also in the floor. That's not even speaking of probabilistic logic where a dice can have 0.5 chance of landing heads. Of course, you could just define better what you consider to be "on a mat" in regular logic. Either way, there's a high variety of logics that this paragraph has taught you. "How educational", the reader thought.

Much like what I said, so was the forms that death would take; springing from bottomic value itself, different forms of blackness appeared to John Sowa. While his initial death from being almost defeated by the clockwork army he had evaded, it left a trace. He had to escape from this trace or the ultimate value of death, zero itself, would he meet.

What he would do, however, is try to catalog it. John Fucking Sowa he was and he had to build his great works. He knew these apparations showed up from the Tree of Death, characterised by the bottomic value itself.

What happened is as follows,

–

Death came to him, saying, "John, you reap what you sow-a!"

"CGI, activate. Evade process."

John thus avoided the reaper, narrowly dodging.

"Heh, almost died from laughter at that one. Time to add this to the catalog."

 _Death, genus Bottom_ _. Adopts a skeletal form._


	16. intermission - devil's legacy

The pharaoh had played many games before.

He had faced Bakura regaining his true name, in the afterlife he played his rival Kaiba. Long before this he played card games in Egypt.

Yet, he was faced with a new game.

He stared at Lewis Carrol's _The game of logic_.

How can you call this a game? By all appearances, it looked like homework from his pal Yugi.

And yet they called it a game.

A team of scientists at IKRIS looked at the board containing this game.

Computational scientists analysed every piece and bit of the manuscript.

 _If you conjure these 7 words,_ it said. _It will bring wisdom and sorrow._

A game, they said it was. And endless parchments they wrote.

Maybe this time, the best move was not to play.


	17. Frege's Oath Prolog

"From two points we form a line, three a triangle, four-"

"A rectangle, if I may interject." pointed Wattson. Yes, the same Wattson who would later meet the famous Sherlock Holmes, a character in the public domain. He may be naive in some matters of logic, but at least this he knew. He was a doctor, after all.

"Elementary, Wattson." said R. Kowalski. A phrase that became known and inexorably linked to the Wattson persona, even if his later mentor, Sherlock Holmes, had never in fact uttered such a phrase in any written record. A common, if mistaken, attribution. This was because R. Kowalski, his current companion, was the one responsible for saying it right now.

"It may be said that a line is one-dimensional. Imagine then you were a point, so-to-speak, only moving left to right, and met all of a sudden a two-dimensional otherworldly being. He would cross not only left to right, but also up and down in his two-dimensional plane.

"I follow," replied Wattson.

"For such an inhabitant of the one-dimensional line, the 2d plane would seem magical. Such a being would move up, escaping from the view of the point, then down again, going back to the purview of the aforementioned point."

"Quite so," mentioned Wattson.

"Consider then that we are inhabitants of 3d space, and we were to see a being of 4d space. He might phase in and out of our view, being able to leave from a locked room if any tunnel to outside exists in this fourth dimension but not ours."

"I see," said Wattson.

That response did not reflect the full thought process of Wattson, however. For a momentous occasion, another thought crossed his mind. He remembered a certain theory he heard from a fellow named Albert Einstein and thought to ask, "-wait! Isn't the fourth dimension _time_?"

Dr. Wattson had an ominous feeling this was not the right thing to say. And he was right.

In another place, he might've been shot on the spot for daring to say such a grave mistake. _Of course it was to be time_ , granting the assumption that only three dimensions of space exist. They were now going under the hypothetical, soon to be confirmed, assumption that not only three but four dimensions of Euclidean space existed in the world. Whether time would now be called the fifth dimension did not matter at all. Now, Kowalski would not hurt him, even if he had in him a rifle. However, it would put an immense strain on their friendship, had he said it.

R. Kowalski picked his pickax.

A stream of water flowed from a solid formation where he hit it.

–

Moments ago, Kowalski imbued the pickax with an enchantment in preparison.

" _Circuitus activis!"_

A scroll that granted his tool with a special property.

It was an art passed to him by Charles Babbage.

–

"W-what? I do not understand this at all, mister Kowalski."

"What I said about the fourth dimension is really no fairy tale, my dear Wattson. No, in fact, you could say it _is_ by all means a fairy tale. My pickax has been imbued with a property. That of hitting into the very fourth dimension."

" _Why would you do so?_ " asked Wattson in awe.

He took a deep breath.

"With this, I merely want to irrigate my lands. Nearest to them, where we're now, is a source of water. However, it's only accessible through the fourth dimension. You'd not usually be able to see it, Wattson. Be that as it may, with the full power of the land, even an inhabitant of the third-dimension can access it."

He continued.

"This is only the beginning, Wattson. I have set structures of my own. Boulders that move around on the whim of pre-set logical queries, doing my work as if answering them."

This was the beginning of Kowalski's construction. That's how he chose to live.

Wattson gasped.

He would later see his machinations prepare big gaps of coffee and wheat.


	18. Frege's Oath: Chapter I

Note: this and the preceding chapter is a stand-alone spin-off prequel to the work in the initial chapters.

* * *

A woman of poor wealth being assaulted by nobles. A common if cliched sight.

Nobles had been demanding ransom, had the woman not promised to accept their wantom demands. Nonetheless, she claimed to accept these demands as to be left alone, even if they could never be met by the poor.

Gottlob Frege had nothing to lose; he had already written his Great Works wherein he turned into logical strokes the logical syllogisms of Aristotle. He interfered.

That's when Gottlob Frege met with the cyber soldiers. Guards equipped with cybernetic gadgetry. Immediately, they neutralized the nobles. Now, they came for the woman.

"This woman has violated the 14th maxim by knowingly making false promises. Leave."

Frege would not budge now. What kind of wretched law was this? These sentries of the land did not ally with the nobles, yet they also wanted to arrest the poor woman… for lying?

"Not budging? You've violated the 23rd maxim."

They readied their robotronic hand-cannon.

Frege quickly dodged the blast. " _Skolemization_ ," the soldier said. That's what seemed to power their cannons. "Universal formulas in our knowledge base pass through the process of instantiation from variables to _Skolem constants_ and _functions_. Then, they are transformed into clauses and go through a process of _resolution._ Automated theorem-proving, a mechanical process that can be done even by a machine."

As expected from the Center of Constructive Mathematics. They cared no more of logic as their philosophical foundations but as means to power their tools. It was not a tool of wonder but a toil for the workers who slaved away at the many factories to study out these boring processes.

Sentries sent to guard this very place came from the Center. But why? As a result of their technology, the Center had been steadily growing into a power. Some sort of treaty between the Center and the city had been made.

"You speak of _Skolemization_ and cybernetics. What is this, gibberish words?" played Frege. He had after all dodged the blasts- though by taking a toll. He was not to be underestimated, as the very foundations of such mechanics rested on foundations made by Frege long ago. He had written his findings, and that was eventually adopted by the Center. Furthermore, the science of cybernetics was still new.

"Ugh," the guard exclaimed. "A normal human would not be able to dodge such a close-range blast."

Gottlob Frege took on each sentry. "Long ago, it was suggested to me that mathematical intuition was connected to psychology. As we formulate thought, as pure as they may be, the mind and body unite to create intuition. By taking on this line of inquiry, I strengthened my body with strokes of logical formulae to achieve super-human feats."

"Heh. Now speak," demanded Frege. "Why do you bother with this village? Who is at your command?"

At this query, the sentries shivered. A man of utmost importance reigned this place. No, not one who built machines. His influence lied elsewhere.

"A saint. No less than a saint. It's no secret to any inhabitant of here that a holy man reigns the place."

"This man," replied Frege. "does nothing but tyranny."

He continued. "As soon as he appeared in his immaculate presence, he set out to make an utopia. An utopia of pure reason. He sent first his seraphs, guards, even us. All to make his metaphysical Law come true. A jurisdiction where no one lies or keeps false promises. An utopia reigned by the _universal maxim._ "

" _Seraphs_?" thought Frege. " _A man to call upon seraphs. What were his true intentions_? No, it could not be- him."

"Yes, he's the man who set up the maxims. He tolerates no dissent from his holy law. All inhabitants of the city must do only what is absolutely good without qualification, or else, feel his reprisal. Will you still stand against it?"

"I see. A man who would not allow a poor villager to make a lie or false promise even under coercion- for the mere reason that such an action can not be defended as an universal standard: if a single lie or false promise was told, the sanctity of a truthful statement or honest promise may later be asked into question."

The man who ruled the city was no other than Immanuel Kant.


	19. II

Gottlob Frege had arrived in a new city. There, he saved a poor person first from nobles and then from the city's guards.

"This is a tyranny of Good," thought Frege. "If such a thing was not an oxymoron. No; this may be mere tyranny."

He walked toward the sanctuary of Kant.

"You shall go no further."

A fellow figure stood between him and the sanctuary. It was but another philosopher.

"Plato?! What is the meaning behind this?"

Yet another figure stood behind him.

"This is… Blaise Pascal."

A figure capable of changing his own beliefs, if he believed it'd maximize his mathematical chance of benefitting from it. Pascal's Wager. This must certainly have been the reason he allied with Kant.

Gottlob Frege could feel that an immense challenge lied before him. Could he take these two?

"Let me have this one," said Plato. "It's been a while since I had the opportunity for a dialog."

Pascal sighed. "I allow. But if it comes to worse, I'll help."

" _Was Plato not such an analytical philosopher?"_ Frege wondered. He missed the most logical advantage of a fight with two. Either way, a match was ahead of him. Before this, Plato spoke.

"A city ruled by the ideal of philosophers. The ideal city-state. Such a thing would not usually be possible. It would remain in the realm of hypothetical. That is, until that man came. A philosopher of holy power who saught pure reason."

Plato continued.

"This is a city-state composed of three classes. We, the philosopher-rulers, the guards and the common folk. Just as I envisioned."

Frege readied for battle.

"I don't know why you came here. I shall have to stop you."

"Plato fist."

"Gottlob's fist."

Their fists met in this logical match. Immediately, they noticed the difference between their powers.

"Pascal, what is this intruder's level of sense-perception?"

"I calculate a number of 2300 sense-perception," said Pascal with keen ability. "Not bad."

 _Strength is not the problem here_ , thought Frege. This guy has a really high intuition. I may have strengthened myself. Yet, this guy goes beyond the mortal coil to the realm of the imaginary, ideal world. _Gah._

"Heh, this guy has a high-level of sense-perception." Pascal said. "A total of 5000. It's not surprising you'd struggle. Give up, now."

Plato possessed a level of sense-perception more than twice as high as him. His very senses were getting cloudy from contact. The landscape warped into different forms.

That was Plato's power. From a table to the concept of a table, a multiplicity of forms lied inbetween.

"Ugh, you can… manipulate the landscape's very forms." It was as if to get him disarrayed. "Is this an illusion… or is it real?"

The whole of the Platonic world disoriented him. But no, Frege had to recover from this. He optimized his circuits. Yes, he had just never met someone this strong before. He focused on the principle of tautology to clear his mind. The mark of true certainty. A weapon able to slay any Cartesian demon, let alone a mere illusion of forms.

" _Boolean circuits…_ flow through me."

His body and mind were now ready.

"W-what is his level now...?"

Pascal wavered. "It is over-"

A flow of electrical light radiated over both, taking them down.


	20. III

"We lost..." Pascal had given up.

From the start, he was not a fighter and relied only on his analytical ability.

"Even so, you ought to give up. More philosopher-rulers lie ahead."

Frege had no plans to stop.

–

"Show yourself, demon."

Numerous philosophical demons appeared. The Cartesian demon, able to trap anyone into an illusion. Laplace's demon, able to know and predict the Newtonian force and position of every particle in the universe. Even Maxwell's demon, able to freeze the whole universe by controlling these particles.

" _Gah..._ " Frege exclaimed. He had not expected such encompassing power. What this city had was weapons of mass-destruction.

In the center of room, Descartes meditated.

"You realized it, didn't you? These demonic presences. You escaped from the trapping of the first demon, the Cartesian one. That alone shall do you no good."

In fact, Frege had the mark of the tautology. A knowledge so certain it could escape the demon, as Descartes had once.

"I once meditated in deep reflection in the waters of the Ganges river," explained Descartes. "There, I saw the uncertainty of our beliefs. I sought then certain philosophical knowledge. From the foundation of certain knowledge, I went to empirical scientific knowledge. With this, I trapped the demons of philosophy one by one."

The demonic presences surrounded Frege. What was he to do?

Suddenly, a light of hope hit the demonic presences. It was no less than the power of Peirce's Arrow.

"Charles Peirce!"

"I have come to aid you."

But that would not be enough. "Demons, deterministically trap and freeze them!"

Normally, there would be nothing they could do. Even if the philosophical illusions and demonic auras were to be gone, the physical power was immense. Not only could Maxwell's demon create 0 Kelvin temperature, Laplace's demon could effectively predict the future. Unless… no, there was one force that could stop it.

"Tesla coil."

It was a force that eluded even these very demons.

"Heh. Your science is old news, Descartes. I took a lot to complete it. I had help from two other scientists. Schrodinger, a scientist who studied quantum physics. Yet another, who invented relativity theory."

In fact, the demons may know every particle under Newtonian theory. But the coil emanated true quantum randomness and amplified mini-black holes. It was a new wave of empirical science unknown to these demons.

"There's a reason one is told not to make contracts with demons," said a scientist in the back. "You acquire demon after demon to compete with other nations. As soon as you know, humanity is back to fighting with sticks and stones."

This man was Albert Einstein.


	21. IV

"The scientists are holding them off," said Peirce. "Let's go!"

Frege and Peirce arrived to the end of the sanctuary. They felt a heavy weight.

"Upon entering this temple, you've crossed the _veil of Proleg_ _omen_ _a_. A world of a priori intuitions await you."

They saw that the purified air of this place increased the toll on their analytical capabilities. In fact, the amount of judgments to be made a priori increased nine-fold in the air.

As much of a toll as it was, they soon realized this could, if you thought another way, not be the problem. The holy leader of the philosopher-rulers was used to such an air.

He must have- 15000. Almost twice as his own level of sense-perception.

"Wrong!" he quickly anticipated Frege's prediction giving a punch, gathering five thousand a priori units and increasing his power to 20000.

Frege defended himself.

"Logic, ethics and physics were the three ancient Greek division of philosophy."

Kant began his impending discourse. Seraphs began to appear and disappear around him.

" _Nine_ is the number of Categories."

He had in fact removed one of the Categories as described by Aristotle. Such was the will of Immanuel Kant.

"Enough of this," said Peirce. "I shall pierce him!"

He shot Peirce's arrows at him, but it did no damage. In fact, he had himself taken damage. Peirce had been engulfed in a trapping of thesis and anti-thesis that his reason could not get out of. _The world has a beginning, but it's infinite._ _There's freedom, but all is nature._

"Is this… the difference between our sense-perception levels?"

"Heed not his words," exclaimed Frege. "He only seeks to confuse you."

* * *

Angelic and demonic wings grew as Kant reached his final form.

It bordered on a 50'000 sense-perception level, give or take imaginary numbers.

"No," thought Frege. There had to be a weakness. Kant had expanded upon Aristotle before him. He himself could expand upon Kant. Someone beyond him would then go on and expand upon Gottlob's logic.

His system of logic kept track of Kant's increased sense-perception, even as it went to imaginary numbers. It mattered not to him whether intuition was derived from space-time or not. His system of logic encompassed even arithmetic in an analytic and a priori way; such a system he would use to surpass Kant.

"I shall stop your reign now. _Cantor's infinite-1 number… punch!"_


	22. Epilogue – Wherein Loose Ends are Tied

Tesla finally threw away his weapon, to fade into obscurity. The world was not ready for even more weapons, even if they were built upon philosophy and physics.

It was sealed away into the netherworld.

Frege walked away and lived in obscurity in a small village somewhere. He would also help other philosophers, Bertrand Russel and John Sowa, to follow in his footsteps. The latter he gave Peirce's Arrow, a weapon also abandoned by Peirce who ventured elsewhere.

Sherlock Holmes solved crimes together with Wattson. "Taking away the impossible, whatever is left must be the truth, no matter how unlikely. I'd even believe in the fourth dimension," said he.

Plato took the most toll. As an old Greek philosopher, the battle was too much for him.

He readied himself to the platonic realm of ideas as his ruling was disbanded. Before this, he met Socrates.

"Are you who I think you are?"

"I may or may not be Socrates," he replied. "Or a form of an idea of him. The real one died long ago."

He paused. "We approach the Platonic world, after all."

Socrates showed him the Platonic world.

"There are orders of angels beyond the seraphs, you know?"

"It had not occurred to me."

"Kant himself became half-angel, half-human. He became focused on spreading his own laws, as angels tend to do."

"So that's what happened to him."

"And if those beings exist, crossing even these realms, is it not unexpected that a being who commands them, a demiurge, as our friend Timaeus suggested, exists?"

"Naturally," replied Plato. It was like one of his dialogs of old. A nostalgic feeling came over him.

"Yet, a prophecy exists; your logic nemesis expanded into the works of Aristotle. One will expand into his works, and so forth, culminating into one who can unite all of logic. One who likes knowledge representation system. He shall then reach Monad, what stands even beyond the demiurge."

"What is this Monad?"

"A monoid in the category of endo-functors."

"..."

"..."

"Is my ideal city-state a sham, after all?"

"Well, you might say… maybe it's a sham. Or perhaps it was this implementation of it that was wrong and it's good in theory."

Plato wondered where he heard such words before.

"But were you not the one who said that upholding unchanging law is ' _like a stubborn, stupid person who refuses to allow the slightest deviation from or questioning of his own rules, even if the situation has in fact changed and it turns out to be better for someone to contravene these rules_ '? And have I not said that ' _all I know is that I know nothing_ '? So perhaps you have forgotten this one maxim, and let law become unchanging to the point of tyranny, believing your city-state to be perfect."

"Maybe so," he replied.

"Plato, do not worry… we are far from the material world now."

"Socrates…"

"Plato..."

The two of them embraced themselves in a gay Platonic hug.

 _The end._


End file.
